


Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

by ailcia



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:48:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailcia/pseuds/ailcia
Summary: Two blokes struggle to account for the influence of the other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [equestrianstatue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/gifts).



“Wotcha."

Morse barely lifted his scowl. He grunted a ‘good morning’ that looked like it hurt to part with and then went straight back to his slow-moving index fingers. Smirking, Jakes sailed past the miserable little oik.

Well, that had been his intention, but he found he had to pull up sharp. Thursday’s door was shut and he could see through the window that the big man himself was stood in front of his desk, busy on the phone. Catching sight of Jakes, Thursday waved a hand and pulled a daft face: receiver away from ear, tongue out, eyes up.

Division.

Jakes snorted before he could help himself. Funny old sod, the guv, really. Hard as bastard nails, for the most. But a softness to him, sometimes, a slipper-shod, woollen-cardied silliness that made Jakes’s guts ache a little whenever he caught a glimpse of it from the doorstep. Sometimes he fancied it was only the hat what allowed Thursday to to shake off the hugs of his children, the kiss of the missus. Putting it on meant he could force himself to leave that warmth and step out into a cold new day. Right, then. No messing.

He wouldn’t mind, but there was only one way to go for a family man like that. Shame, because there weren’t many of his metal in the game. But the writing had been on the wall even before the new arrival had got his plates under the table and Thursday running around after him like some blue-arsed nanny.

As the boss made a show of his broad back, leaning further into the phone to disagree more forcefully with something, Jakes circled round to the offending article.

Morse’s thin shoulders hitched instinctively with the sudden attention, as if bracing for a blow. He flashed him a brief warning glare and it was all Jakes could do not to laugh. They’d not had all that much to do with one another, since he’d landed at the station and swiped the bagman spot with his doe-eyed act. Jakes was gratified to see that what little they had had, had made such an impression.

He lit a cigarette, taking his time, enjoying the way the smoke lingered in drifts between them. Enjoying how twitchy Morse was getting. For someone who made such a show of himself at every turn, he didn’t much like sustained scrutiny.

“What’s on your desk for today, then, Constable?” Emphasis very much on the first bit.

Morse’s mouth puckered ugly, pinching up at the side. He kept his eyes down. “Oh, you know. Just… more of the same.”

Short and shitty. That was to be expected.

But Morse squirmed a little under the continuing weight of Jakes’s unimpressed stare. After a moment, he huffed a pointed breath. “I was thinking, last night, that there’s been a spate of break-ins all over Jerricho way over the past six months… They are small, spread out and sporadic, so no one has picked up on them. I’m going through and typing up all the reports in case there’s a link.” He glanced up at Jakes, baby blues not quite managing to hide his eagerness for a pat on the head, a ‘well done, son.’

Jakes rolled his eyes, instead.

“Rustling paperclips, is it? Well, I’m sure Nipper’s resting easy.”

Morse shrugged, but Jakes saw the edges of his nostrils flare white. Primly, he went back to his typing, the affront stealing into his voice as he said, “All’s quiet on the reception front. I just thought I’d make myself useful.”

There he went again. A one-man bloody mission to show the rest of them up. He didn’t half pick his moments.

It had been a blessedly light week so far, with a general lull in wrong-doing and let up of orders. The more seasoned among them knew that at times like this it was important to rest up, to mooch and to mull, to take full advantage of the breather because you never knew when you’d see one again. Even the wooden-tops knew it. Jakes had taken great pleasure in startling Jim Strange out of his kip in the break room on his way in yesterday morning, giving him such a start he’d farted and fallen off the sofa. They’d all had a giggle. That was what it was all about. Larks.

And here Morse was going out of his way to find extra work and ruin it for the rest of them. All so he could be a bleeding hero. Or, more likely, because he didn’t have anything better to do. It was pathetic.

Irritated and eager to share it, Jakes bent suddenly over him, fagged hand on the table and the other on the back of Morse’s chair. Morse startled, nose wrinkling as Jakes drew close, leaning back and away in a motion so peculiar Jakes stopped short.

“What?”

“Were you out last night?”

This temporarily disarmed Jakes, who had been gearing up to deliver a volley of insults and idle threats under his breath and out of the old man’s earshot. The pot-shot blindsided him completely.

Although he held his eye, Morse was clearly discomforted by Jakes’s hot and hungover breath on his skin, lip curling in disgust. Probably hadn’t had another person that close to him before now. Didn’t know where to put himself or what to do with his face. Jakes leant in all the closer.

“Oh, you know. A few jars with the lads and then up the Stardust with a couple of pieces. One on each hand… But that was later.” He laughed thickly, watching as Morse slowly turned a very faint purple. “You should have come, I’d have let you have one.”

Morse tried to say something, but it got stuck on its way out and he cleared his throat. Peter saw the flashing edges of white teeth as Morse bared his lips, trapped in his agony. He smelt of the morning - peppermint, coffee and carbolic. Odd, really: Jakes realised he must have been working on the assumption that Morse just sprung out of the ground each day. Fell out of the fucking sky.

“On second thoughts, though, maybe not,” Jakes’s voice lazy and low, cruel. “It’s not like you’d know what to do with them, is it?”

Morse looked down, mouth turning under, refusing now to respond to him at all. Just waiting for it to be over.

Jakes looked away, through the window to see the old man shifting his weight from foot, the way he did when he was about to finish a phone call. Time’s up. Jakes stood up, putting the distance back between them, and pulling on his cigarette.

“’Course, I couldn’t live with myself. Knowing I’d dragged you away from all your singing and your extra homework on a school night. Break your bleeding little heart. I couldn’t live with myself.”

Morse looked mutinous.

The office door opened, revealing an ever-so-slightly harried-looking Thursday leaning around the door frame and straightening his tie. “Jakes, you’re with me. The master of Bailey’s requesting our immediate presence. And by ‘requesting’ I mean ‘ordering’ and no one is deigning to tell me why.” He cast his eyes about and frowned, “Morse, you fancy a bit of fresh air?"

Morse took in a breath, eyebrows raising, but Jakes was quicker. “Morse was just telling me how he’s up to his elbows in these Jerrichos. Don’t want to disturb the flow.”

“Oh, okay, fair enough.”

Was it his imagination, or did Thursday sound disappointed? Losing the chance of spending two car journeys in the silent company of his prize prude was genuinely upsetting for him. It really wound him up how Thursday, Strange, the pathologist, all of them doted all over this little nothing from nowhere, this attitude on legs. Letting him get away with blue bloody that would get any other stripling sacked, soon as. Bright was the only one with a lick of sense, if you could Adam it. What was so special about him, anyway?

Thursday had ducked into his office and returned with great coat already on and hat in hand. He still only had eyes for Morse. “Depending on what his lordship wants, we’ll swing back and pick you up for lunch, alright?”

Morse made a decidedly uncommitted noise. But that was apparently good enough for Thursday, who put his hat on and swept out of the office, all the everyday working noises seeming to increase once he was out of the room.

Jakes stubbed his cigarette out on the side of Morse’s desk and chucked the end into the bin behind him. Morse watched him, and Jakes could already see the cogs whirring. He stabbed a finger on the pile of files in front of him. “Eyes down and mind your own. This is your bed.”

“I know,” Morse gave his head an angry little shake as he said this, sandy half-curls swaying.

Vindicated, Jakes gave him one last stern look and followed out. He didn’t have to look back to know that Morse’s sharp little eyes were on him the whole time.

\------

Morse was lately finding rather more of his days than he cared staring at the back of Jakes’s head.

It had its points of interest. One ear folded and rumpled as if it had been slept on. Hair neat and dark and razor-sharp at the nape. An elegant neck with rather more moles than one might think spreading down into camel shoulders built wide. He could see each of these featureless landmarks in his mind unbidden. Even with eyes shut they burned negative against the lightened windshield. But he could never summon the same sharp feeling of gloom, the exact nature or depth of the despair and frustration that threatened to overwhelm him whenever he found himself trapped in this back seat, staring at that head back. Wishing with all his might that he could be anywhere else. But where else could he be?

He caught Jakes’s grey eye in the mirror and, startling, quickly shifted his gaze away. Thursday was talking, had been for some time. But Morse already knew it all and so wasn’t listening. He’d taken the call, after all.

He let the rich voice roll over him as rain raced itself across the smeared land outside and his heart sunk steadily to his boots. One corner of his mind tried valiantly to focus on the sounds Thursday was making, seeking out the small comfort he could almost always extract from the familiar lilt. Sometimes he thought Thursday’s words were his only anchor in this world, the one hope he had of not being swept clean away with it all.

It always shook him. And he was always stupidly surprised by how much.

He just could not bring himself to understand how a whole person could be snuffed out so quickly, rubbed away from the workings of the world without a trace. Entire and then... And no way of knowing them, not really. Not anymore. Though was such a thing even possible alive? Only ever a half-echo of them left in the rubble of their lives and the love they left behind, and only then if that person was very, very lucky, indeed. Most did not even have that comfort, that most essential quality of being. Everywhere, in everything, yet somehow still so impossible to grasp. Humanity was ever reaching upwards for it, seeking a way out of the daily debris. Doomed to fall short, forever, fingertips only ever brushing the hems of angels.

Droplets crashed together and tore themselves apart, breaking up into a hundred pieces and disappearing, gone. That was how Jakes sought out his comfort. Successfully, too, by all accounts. He stalked the station like a self-satisfied peacock, boasting of his conquests to an adoring and guffawing audience. He made it look easy. 

But Morse had fallen far shorter than most, and now was only left with the vaguest memory of the softest touch and no real understanding of how to feel it again. Since Jakes’s sharp unkindness the other week – notable, even by his standards – Morse had felt low, left behind, lacking. 

He wondered how many others across how many centuries had stared out at the world in the same way, disconsolate, dripping, dying. On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me.

“What do you reckon, then, Morse?”

Thursday had asked the question, but he didn’t seem to be looking for the answer – he was lent forward in his seat, squinting through the driving rain at the indistinct smudges of blue and black up ahead.

Fortunately, the back of Morse’s mind was able to supply the information, piecing and sieving and prompting him to speak. “I think you’re right. She was meeting someone. No one would be out in this weather if they could avoid it.”

It did for Thursday, who grunted his agreement. But he saw Jakes roll his eyes in the mirror. He was always rolling his eyes at him. “Maybe not you. Normal people get caught short, Morse. Places to go, people to see, and all that. World’d come to a standstill if all it took were a bit of rain to put ‘em off.”

England would fall.

“Maybe it should.”

“Here now, any road,” Thursday cut in with some force.

Morse gathered himself as the car came to a standstill and shot out of it as soon as he could, feet slick on the wet ground. The rain pushed down at his shoulders, unbearably heavy, dragging him down by his coat. Scrunching his shoulders, he ducked round to the boot and hoisted it up, seizing the two umbrellas.

He passed one to Jakes and one to Thursday, who opened his and held it over him while Morse sat on the bumper and struggled to put his wellies on. Thursday had had the sense to put his on in the office which, if Morse was wondering, was an example of the kind of thinking a good policeman might do, if he had a mind.

Morse nodded, taking the point, and took carefully to his feet, shoving his trouser legs down into the boots. He looked up at Jakes, still haunting his elbow. “Do you want yours?”

Jakes looked him up and down and snorted before walking away. Thursday kept his face impassive, but Morse fancied he could see a flicker of amusement in his dark eyes when he was turned to in silent appeal.

They made slow progress across the dreadful mud. Jakes, mindful of his Italian leathers, sought higher ground, using the turf raked up by the cars to his advantage, picking his way carefully across, looking for all the world like a long-limbed cat along the edge of a bathtub. Morse splodged straight through a puddle, stomping his feet. Though it was only half-deliberate, this earned him a short glare and a long tut from Thursday, who batted a hand back and forth over his newly splattered overcoat. Morse hid his guilty smirk.

Eventually, they reached DeBryn, who looked over his glasses at him, ever the solicitous physician.

“Juicy one, this. You going to be alright, are you?”

Morse scowled, feeling the familiar burn of deep fury flush up the back of his neck. Made all the worse by the fact that his stomach had, of course, turned utterly over the second he caught sight of blood flooding through the grass, brought to a queasy foam at the edges by the strength of the deluge. His breath had quickened, his body betraying him with a heart hammering half-out of time. He struggled to keep it from his face. Could feel Thursday watching him, didn’t even have to look. Why couldn’t they all just leave him to it? He was trying. He was getting there, slowly, disgusted with himself, but surely.

Flicking DeBryn a glance – for all his bluntness, a kind man – he nodded tightly. DeBryn relented, as Morse had known he would, and launched into an explanation that, after a beat, succeeded in drawing Thursday’s attention back to the matter in hand, leaving Morse to concentrate on getting his heart rate and temper back down.

The rain slowed and stopped as the doctor made his morbid determinations. As Jakes and Thursday questioned DeBryn, Morse felt himself sliding further and further away, context bleeding away, washing out across the sodden ground. He felt unbearably maudlin, his head full of morning fog, unable to muster the energy to engage with any element of the grisly scene. He knew it was wrong, knew he owed the victim his care and respect. As they made their slow way back to the car, he tried to sort himself out, bracing his hands hard against the lining of his coat pockets, an absurd textile triangle. He expelled a hard breath outwards, it smoked and stuttered. He pulled his hands back quickly with a tingling smack to his thighs.

Suddenly, he was grabbed by the scruff of his neck, and yanked back from the path of Jackson, lethal behind his milk-bottle glasses and the wheel of a police car, who had lurched suddenly forward, quick and spitting mud.

Jakes looked at him, half horrified, cuffing him about the ear and then pulling his hand away as if scalded. “You got a death wish or something? What’s wrong with you?”

Aye, there’s the rub, Morse thought. His ear burned as he struggled with the possibility that it was the first time anyone had touched him since he’d fainted into Thursday’s arms all those weeks ago.

\-----

It was about half eleven when Jakes heard a soft tap at his door. Work, of course, but could hardly have been Thursday with his firm, rapping knock, official enough to stop hearts. Some wet-eared constable, most like, sent in lieu of the inspector who, his sergeant found himself hoping, was getting his head down.

Jakes balanced the small iron on the end of the wonky board and went to answer it, walking past the small mountain of fabric standing in testament to his own nerves.

A rather shifty-looking Morse was kicking the mat.

“Oi, pack that in.”

Morse gave a start, as if he hadn’t been expecting the door to open.

“What’re you doing here?” Jakes asked sharply. He’d only just remembered he was in his vest, cold night air striking his skin and making it sting.

Morse made to speak, cleared his throat, frowned, then tried again. “I… don’t know,” was what he ended up with.

Peter rolled his eyes.

He went inside and headed straight to his drinks cabinet – small, but arranged in a smart, mirrored cabinet. All the rage. Behind him, shuffling noises and then the door shutting.

“Actually, that’s not true… I came to give you this.”

Jakes didn’t turn around straight away, busy with the vodka. When he did, Morse was holding out a whiteish bundle for him. Jakes swapped it for one of the glasses, which Morse immediately sank his face into.

It was a shirt, but it wasn’t his shirt. This one was old, frayed – the collar and cuffs were fuzzy at the edges. He frowned, turning it round in his hand, and looked up to find hard blue eyes watching him, mouth all twisted up as if he didn’t like his drink.

Peter sniffed. “Ta.” He slung it to one side, onto his bed, then pulled at the waistband of his beltless trousers. He coughed and, reaching into the coat hanging on the back of a nearby chair, retrieved a fag from the pocket.

Lighting it took a little while. He was a bit out of puff by the end.

“You alright, then?”

Morse nodded swiftly and took another quiet, deep drink.

Jakes took his empty glass from him and went back to the cabinet, cigarette pressed between his lips.

“No, you’re not,” he mumbled through it, back to him.

Morse snorted. “What do you mean?”

“How could you be?” He turned around, pointing at the other man with one of the glasses. “How could you be, more’s the point.”

Morse blinked at him. He took that glass he was offered, but shook his head, playing dumb. As bleeding if.

Feeling a flash of irritation strike through him, Peter tilted his head and stepped closer, looking down at him with a smile he wasn’t sure he meant. “Put it this way, I could have bet money on you making a song and dance. Surprised the lads haven’t set up a sweep.”

More feigned ignorance. So Jakes went further, in step and sentiment. “After all, it was your picture he had on his wall.”

At such close range, he saw the understanding steal into Morse’s eyes, saw them widen.

He’d half-expected Morse to flounce off, to whirl his way out and away. At the very least to strike up a fuss. He was, after all, brilliantly easy to offend. One of the few points in his favour, to Peter’s mind, was the stubborn set of his chin as he defended himself. He’d plant his feet and state his case right back at you, outraged that you couldn’t see things from his point of view which was, naturally, always right and not to be questioned. He did make for good sport. Usually, he fizzed with energy.

But that night Morse just stood, frozen and blinking in the centre of the room. It was unnerving, especially after all the shouting of the week. They’d nearly come to blows over the Snow girl. Well, Jakes had very nearly hit Morse. He'd rarely felt such a swell of intense emotion towards another person.

He stepped back, running a hand through his hair. He sat down. After a moment, Morse did the same. He didn’t wince, but Jakes caught the way he held his breath.

He thought suddenly of Thursday, silent and grey on the drive back to the station, grim and determined for the rest of the night’s work. He’d left with barely a word to either of them.

Jakes sighed, heavy, head learning back to rest on the wall behind the sofa. He regarded Morse, who was pale and drawn even under the warm lamplight, tensed and awkward in how he was sat. Tougher than he looked by half, but Jakes had seen the nick of him after Strange brought him back from the hospital. The uniform had been unnecessarily overbearing about the whole thing, leading a peaky-looking Morse down the corridor with one arm thrust ostentatiously out in front to guard him from possible knocks. He’d actually pulled a face when Peter gave the order to take word to Thursday and leave Morse to him. Insubordinate sod.

“How’s the gut?"

“Fine.”

Prick.

“Look, anyone who pretends they’re alright after something like that is a fool to himself,” Jakes declared, before taking a sip of his drink. “And others.” The vodka tonic fizzed at the back of his throat.

“I’m no fool."

“You damn well are, scaling the roof like that with a hole through you.”

“Got him, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent.

When Morse had first started, Jake’s was sure he’d never be able to stand his company for longer than five minutes at a time. Jumped-up little swot. Too sure of himself by half and superior with it. Always holding himself apart from everyone, too good for them. All on the strength of this supposed ‘brain’ of his… Jakes couldn’t see how what he did was any better than normal coppering. More confusing, if anything, with all these fancy theories flying about the place. But Thursday and Strange looked at him like he was a bloody marvel, like the sun shone out of it. Jakes couldn’t go that far, but he couldn’t deny that Morse had rolled up his sleeves on this one. You had to give him it. He cared deeply about the work.

“I can’t believe it’s over.”

Morse said it softly, almost to himself. He was sitting with his glass pressed against his lips, half covering his mouth, and a hazy look about his eyes, which were cast over to the skirting board in the far corner. Jakes, surprised at such an admission from the normally cold constable, couldn’t think of anything to say. But it didn’t seem to matter. “It’s all still there,” Morse went on, bringing a hand up to the flat of his chest. “A hot feeling, just under the skin… I think it’s panic. Pure… panic.”

He slugged back his drink and leaned forward, rolling the empty glass between white hands. Jakes watched it travel backwards and forwards, head still heavy against the wall. He kept still and silent, not wanting to spook the other man.

“I wonder if I’ll ever be rid of it. Of him."

Peter felt a tug of sympathy and swallowed. “You will.”

Morse met his eye, then, and held it. 

After a moment, though, he seemed to remember himself and stood up abruptly, unable to hide his flinch this time. Jakes stayed where he was, watching as Morse subtly steadied himself on the arm of the chair before turning to him with his familiar grimace of gratitude already set in place.

“I'll let myself out," he said before pausing, unsure of himself. "Thanks for the drink.”

“Just don’t make a habit of it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after 'Rocket.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, rightly or wrongly, I am continuing with this story. I know exactly what's going to happen and where it'll end up, what I don't know is how many chapters there'll be or how long it'll take me to write it... I'll try to post little bits often. 
> 
> Hope you like!

As they drove away from the factory, Thursday kept up a steady stream of non-talk. He had quite a knack for it, when called for. Must be what having a family did to you. Or the army.

It began with the fact that all this union business had put him in mind of a great uncle up north who had been head of the print-setters at a local paper, and the hell that had been caused when his scribbler nephew crossed the floor during a run to tink a tanner for the pub. After a small lull in which Morse was unable to summon a response to this meander down Thursday’s family lane, he’d then struck upon several observations regarding the state of the roads, the fashions of the day as they passed one-by-one in the street, the prospects of that weekend’s match, the prospects of that weekend’s gardening, as well as what Mrs Thursday would likely have in for his supper that evening. The fish and chips were just a bite on, as it were. Cases done well didn’t half muster an appetite.

As he chuntered away, he busied himself getting a pipe ready, making more of a meal of it than usual and swearing softly as he backhanded brown scrags off his second-best set of trousers. Morse’s hot hands clenched on the wheel, sweat prickling against leather, and he fought in vain against his rising irritation.

Finally, suddenly. “Here’s the kiddie. Pull over.”

In the sudden burst of bright evening sun, Morse hauled the Jag’s wheel only a second or so late, swinging the car elegantly but rather violently around, the edge of the wheels bumping hard against the curve.

Hand-and-pipe still braced against the door, Thursday let out a huff of shocked breath, eyes wide. “Blimey, Morse, I hope you’re not planning to turn the car over for the sake of a pretty face.”

“Rarely planned, I would have thought,” Morse muttered, and then caught himself. He glanced over to be met with a familiar eyebrow and quiet, searching look that so often went with it. His stomach dropped and he looked away at once, wishing it would stop. He was surprised by the small pat on his arm that came a heartbeat or so later. He turned back in time to see Thursday clambering out of the car.

Alone and in quiet for the first time since the factory, a hot glut of shame welled within him. It rose first in his throat. His teeth clenched, creaking uncomfortably, as the night spat across his mind. Her turning to him, searching, wheedling, a strange mix of inertia and aggression. His hands across her pale belly, pathetic with need yet clumsy with the warmth of her skin. He had been all-but paralysed by the strange contours of another body, by his own fear and a sadness so powerful it made him breathless and incapable.

She’d shown herself up to be just as pathetic. Going for him, of all people. She’d spoken embarrassingly fondly of him, gilding moments he had never even deigned to notice. He’d been a man – a boy – obsessed. He almost hated her for remembering him as he had been, for giving voice to the unforgiveable foolishness of that year. The year he had started to believe he might survive after all. The year someone had skipped, laughing, across the seemingly impossible silence that separated him from all other living creatures as lightly as if it were a trickling stream, and held her hand out. He had been amazed by the ease of it all, swept away by her, his body seized whole by want and warmth after all those terrible years of abject, aching solitude. But she had not been his saviour, after all. Quite, quite the opposite.

He felt a dull flash of almost physical pain in his chest. Then the anger came, quick and dependable to the last.

Alice had tried so hard, desperate to mould him into something more than he was, the dreams of others thick between them. It had been stilted, subdued and spoiled by their shared but all too separate greed, entirely lacking in comfort or joy. Her hair had smelt deeply of stale sweat and hairspray and had itched his nose intolerably in the stricken silence that followed. As his erratic breathing slowed, he had watched her raise her eyes to the ceiling and keep them there, unwilling to meet his. Years of waiting ending, unsurprisingly, in keen humiliation. You would think he’d be used to it by now. Both the giving and the receiving. A purveyor of all. But her disappointment in him and his paltry offerings had been palpable, choking. And he, of course, had no excuses to give for his incompetence as a human, his inability to draw comfort from the same sources as others, his heart’s steadfast refusal to mend, to perform properly.

As she turned her back to him, he had found himself, oddly, thinking of Jakes. Knowing winks from dark eyes and charm sharp enough to cut when bothered with. Morse knew Jakes regularly swaggered from one bed to another with not a care, guided by sheer good luck (or was it looks) and a nose for a good time. Each time safer in the knowledge that he was cut out for the world he found himself in. The proof was in the pudding. Hot breath and flesh, smirks and clapped backs. You show ‘em, son, and all that rot. He made it all look like nothing at all. Morse, meanwhile, felt like he’d jumped in his skin and now it no longer sat right on his bones.

His fury seemed to throb and radiate outwards, pressing tight against the metal and glass frame of the car, leaving no space to breathe. To think. He needed air.

Surging out of the car, he inhaled it in huge gulps. His quick movement triggered Thursday’s attention, who was now watching him from inside the shop, head dipped and frowning through the circle of space between _Broughty’s_ and _Fish and Chips_. Morse waved what he hoped was reassuring hand and then turned away. His back pressing flat against the door of the car, he dropped his head to the edge of what was comfortable and tried to untangle himself as the golden light warmed his eyelids, his stretched neck.

In some ways, his shame was directed towards the horrible relief he felt, then and now. Almost the same, he imagined, as for one fleeing the scene of their crime. He’d gotten away with it. Free, again. Yet the abject rejection had hurt all the same, a cold and awful slap in the face. One that should have been expected more than it had been. He felt exposed, desperate to disappear back to before, to where he was supposedly still unready (unwilling?) to leave. To disappear, any road. He had felt almost sick with gratitude when Thursday had suggested a chippy tea, offering him an escape route from the dark night he had begun to realise was facing him. But now, here, he just wanted to run.

He pushed himself away from the car and squared his shoulders, hands jittering at his sides.

“Alright?”

Thursday eyes were shaded by the brim of his hat, but Morse didn’t need to see them to know their expression. He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, shoulders dropping after a moment, and nodded.

Thursday held out a newspaper bundle, the wooden fork on top safe under his thumb. Taking it, the smell of hot vinegar wafted up into Morse’s face, sharpening his senses and kicking his stomach into life. It growled unexpectedly, furious after days of not much.

“Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“The Swan’s just on the corner, there, and there’s a snug. I’ll stand you one… Or three.” At Morse’s apparent surprise, Thursday nodded grimly, lips quirking. “Reckon you’ve more than earned it, this case.”

Whether he was referring to Alice, Olive, Bright, or himself, Morse couldn’t tell, but it didn’t seem to matter. He followed his lead, already unwrapping his precious cargo, fingers tacky with newsprint.

As they crossed the road, the sudden abundance of golden haze through the roofs picked out the fuzz in the fabric of Thursday’s coat, blurring the edges of him as he strode across the road. Morse put a chip in his mouth and knew then that he loved him. Suddenly and with perfect clarity.

As he reached the door of the pub, palm flat on edged glass, Thursday glanced back and paused. “What?”

Throat tight, still chewing, Morse could only shake his head. It might be enough. Might be enough to get by.

Thursday rolled his eyes and pushed on through to the other side, hefting his chippy tea almost a full arms-length onto a table to his left with practiced ease, before grasping the lapels of his overcoat. “Right, get yourself sat in there. I won’t be a tick.”

Casting a gloomy eye around the wood-panelled room, Morse did as he was told. He placed his open wrap on the table and tried to collect himself. Silly, getting so worked up. He couldn’t even quite put his finger on what was so wrong. He didn’t want Alice, he knew that. He’d been half-horrified by her pressing need, her obvious delight in reincarnating a version of himself he’d done his best to hide away, put behind him – a gullible, gadding boy, unfit for any of the games that, unbeknownst to him, had been in play all about him. So desperate to escape his anger that he had taken a match to his own life.  

But… What that fool had felt, back then, had at least been wholly honest. His entire body and soul given over to it, insides aflame and actions unclouded by fear. It had ruined him utterly, and his fingers – his heart – still smarted from the burn… But the idea, unstumbled upon so far, that he might never have that again? He didn’t know what frightened him more.

“Oi.”

He looked up. Thursday was stood in the doorway to the snug, holding glasses clustered in both hands and looking rather irritated. “Pack that in.”

“Pack what in?”

“You know fine well. It’ll do you no use. And take that bloody coat off, will you, you’ll make me nervous.”

Morse scowled but obeyed, struggling out of his outer layer as Thursday set the drinks down and pushed two over towards him.

He groaned as he sat down himself. He leaned back against the bench, one lock of greying hair falling forward as he placed his hat on the table. “Nothing like a half and half for heartbreak, as my old gran would say… Mind you, she also used to drink rum and pep, so there you are. Pinch of salt.”

Morse nodded absently, watching the way the whisky clung to the sides of the glass, fighting to remain there even as the rest sank to a steady stillness.

He’d known it would all come out eventually. That was part of what was bothering him. He’d known the jig was up as soon as Jakes had caught sight of him with Alice. His dark eyes had been near dancing as he’d come over to get the scoop, lips twisting as close to a smile as he ever got. And Morse had felt them on him for the rest of job, eager to gather up all possible evidence of past embarrassment, a natural copper’s instinct turned to the furnishing of future debates over his worth as a policeman, as a man.

He hated it, having Jakes and Thursday turning over and over the half-facts of his life. That they should be collected together and spread out again according to whatever theory was in the offing, twisted to fit their notions of him. And getting it all wrong. Or worse, right.

Every word he said gave him further away. He always said too much, too fiercely, and he wouldn’t even have known it but for the widening of eyes, the expressions of disbelief, of anger, that so often met his words. He knew everyone he ever met went away with an idea of his queerness, his complete inability to fit in the frame they were all supposed to share. Alice had said as much. People held him as a fixed point of oddity to orientate themselves around, to compare themselves to and feel comforted. Ah well, at least we get along with it all better than him. But he didn’t know how that had come to be, nor how to fix it. It irritated him - he wished above all to exist in the world unremarked, unexamined, unquestioned. If everyone would just mind their own… But he supposed that was not how it all worked, was it?

Not how Thursday worked, any road. He’d taken a peculiar interest in Morse from the start and, inexplicably, always seemed eager to know more about his thoughts and feelings, his life then and now. With Jakes, his hackles rose: the receipt of extra attention usually portending to some sort of cruelty or viciousness. Same as when he was little. His natural tendency towards taciturnity had only been exacerbated by having his words later thrown back at him in horribly twisted forms, more often than not with a smack from Gwen and, ever so occasionally and only when he could be bothered to expend the effort, with a clout from his father. No wonder he’d clammed up young.

But Morse found he didn’t often mind when Thursday asked him a question about himself, even bluntly (as was sometimes his wont). More than that, the quietude with which his meagre, muttered half-answers were accepted – with a kind and generous and uncomplicated regard – meant he often found himself offering more of an explanation for himself than he ever thought possible. And wanting to. Because that’s what Thursday wanted.

“It’s not heartbreak, sir.”

He glanced quickly at Thursday, who had paused only slightly in opening his chippy wrapper and who kept his eyes courteously down as Morse tried to continue.

“It’s… Well, I’m not sure what it is, other than inevitable.”

At this, Thursday did look up, his lips set into flat line as he took it all in. Morse tried not to squirm. “She knew me… Before.” He picked up a chip, prodding it somewhat sullenly into a pool of vinegar, and snorted. “When I was one-and-twenty.”

Thursday drew in a sigh and Morse, who hadn’t meant to say quite that, remembered with a shock that the Inspector had not only read his file but also knew much more than police procedure or past battlefields. He’d caught the reference entirely.

Morse dropped his chip and reached instead for the whisky, feeling suddenly panicky. Thursday was a man of the best sort. But his life had been hard won, years of his youth wasted on foreign soil and foreign blood. The experience had left behind a steeliness and lack of sympathy which, usually hidden, sometimes shocked Morse. Had, in the factory: he could still hear the snarls, the spitting contempt for a completely innocent man, but a man who, like him, had not shared in the burden of a generation. What must Thursday make of Morse, soft to his very bones?

The whisky burnt and his eyes watered treacherously as he waited for the blow.

“Take it from me, Morse. There’s no such thing as inevitable.”

He sounded tired, and Morse looked up to find him contemplating his own whisky glass, fingers tilting it away. “I’ve seen how suddenly things can turn. Bright lads like you, full of spirit or earmarked for greatness, lost – ” he cleared his throat “ – before they’d even begun. Other little toe-rags – ” he lifted a thumb, jabbing at the oak behind him “ – scraping through and getting another go at life, for better – finding love, settling down, freed from what went before. Or for worse, and more at that. No rhyme, no reason.”

His dark eyes sought Morse’s and shone with intent. “ _No one’s_ born under a bad sign and no course is ever set. It all turns on a pin. You just make your luck, as much of it as you can, _while_ you can." He shrugged, eyebrows raised, "And hope.”

Morse let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, and sagged back against the bench. He only half-noticed the heavy warmth of the hand that grasped his shoulder. "And leave off all the rest. There's naught for."

Pulling back, Thursday reached for his whisky, slung some back, and then for his bitter. His mild gaze drifted out through the doorway, as the sounds of the pub welled all around them in their silent snug. And, after a moment, Morse followed suit. 


End file.
